Doctor fears baby ghosts

This article comes from the Apple Daily on Friday. It is an interview with "Doctor Peace." He explains why he doesn't perform abortions, recounts an encounter with a ghost, and tells the surprising reason for mishaps at the hospital. I find the stories about encounters with ghosts which are so common in Asian culture to be boring, but what I found interesting about this is that it shows how a doctor's religious beliefs actually have an influence on his practice and how they allow him to deal with the inevitable losses that happen on the job. Unfortunately, he is not very articulate on these points. The best I can make of it is that he believes performing abortions will put him in close contact with the spirit world, which he fears, and he believes he doesn't have authority to decide life or death.



Q: Why don't you perform abortions?
A: I chose obstetrics and gynecology because I thought only in this department would people come in happy and leave happy. Over the years, I've come across some children who weren't able to leave the hospital, which shattered my fantasy. I believe in karma. The spirit world has its own reasons, so I don't do abortions.

Q: When there is someone who must have an abortion, how do you handle it?
A: I often come across junior high girls who are pregnant. That's a big crossroads in their life. If you don't help her, she'll be done for. So I'll introduce her to a qualified physician that I trust. Otherwise she'll have no one to turn to. If she turns to an unlicensed doctor or tries to buy medicine it would be even more dangerous. I've seen a lot of cases where the abortion has caused harm. There were some where the intestines were pulled out or where the uterus was pierced. When they come in it is because of [the resulting] peritonitis and it causes infertility.

I oppose abortion, but as a counseling physician, I shouldn't be biased or try to guide the patient on the question of whether or not to keep the child. You can only provide neutral opinions, and let her decide, for better or worse.

I had a patient who was pregnant in her second year of high school. At that time I kept telling her she should keep it, but her mother kept telling her to get rid of it! She kept the baby, but in the 28th week she was sent to the hospital because of bleeding. I found that her kid's heartbeat was gone. We hurriedly went into surgery to get it out. The pediatrician got the child's heart beating again and he went on living, but the child had cerebral palsy and died after a year. This made me reflect: was what I did right? If I had accepted the advice of the girl's family at that time, she wouldn't have gone through so much tragedy and she would have had a good future. Fortunately, she's doing fairly well now. She's good looking and she's become a celebrity.

The other reason I don't do abortions is because my body is sensitive, so I can feel some things. In college I saw demons, and later I saw ghosts. When I had been a resident doctor for three years, one night after midnight after I had finished making rounds and was going back to go to sleep, I passed the cancer ward. I suddenly saw an old woman come out of a room. I joked to myself, "This grandma must be bored so she's getting up in the middle of the night to go shopping." I asked her, "What's going on? Why did you come out?" She said her grandson was looking for her and she was going home. I said, "It's so late. Go back tomorrow." I led her to the doorway and she opened the door and entered.

The next day I was writing patients' records and I happened to ask a nurse, "Last night that old woman said she was going home. Can she leave?"
She asked me, "Which old woman?"
"The old woman from room X."
"She died two or three days ago!"
I felt chilled. The deceased patient had been reluctant to leave.

After that incident, I ran into that kind of thing less often, but I have a friend who has a yingyang eye (which allows him to see ghosts) who told me that he saw lots of children in the birthing ward of the hospital as soon as the door opened. Those are the kids who have been aborted or who couldn't leave. I can't see them, but I can feel it.

Q: Do they affect the patients?
A: I've treated three mothers for symptoms of premature labor. All three [should have been] able to go home the next day. But strangely, the next day none of them were able to leave the hospital. A mother was affected by placenta previa (placenta is attached in the wrong place). I treated her so that she stopped bleeding and told her she could go home, but not long later she began bleeding profusely and we had to administer a Ceasarean section.

The other pregnant mother had a fetus whose heart was beating at over 200 bpm. I controlled it using medicine, and congratulated the mother that she could go home the next day, but that evening the child's heart started up again. I went into surgery as quickly as possible but the child couldn't make it.

There was also a mother who I treated so that her uterus was no longer contracted, after which she could betransfered to the common ward, but the same thing happened as before and the next day her uterus suddenly contracted and lost blood. We performed an emergency Ceasarean section and fortunately the twins were ok. Afterwards I thought, it's those [ghost] children horsing around! Really!

I know the pain of those mothers whose children are still in the hospital and can't be free, but life is beyond understanding. So every once in a while I go worship the god of health (Baosheng Dadi). I don't do it for myself, but for the health of the mothers. This is the root of being a physician; if the patient is healthy then I'm healthy.